MOTS-c and tirzepatide are compared by people looking at peptides for weight and metabolism. The comparison sets an approved medicine with one of the largest obesity trials on record against a compound that has not been dosed in a single published human study. This page reports what each record holds, puts the weekly milligram figures side by side, and converts both to syringe units.
The full record for each is on tirzepatide dosage and MOTS-c dosage. The same contrast against a compound still in phase 3 is on the retatrutide and MOTS-c page.
Side by side
| Tirzepatide | MOTS-c | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | GIP and GLP-1 receptor agonist (label) | 16-amino-acid peptide encoded in mitochondrial DNA (Lee et al., 2015) |
| Approval | FDA-approved (ZEPBOUND, MOUNJARO) | None anywhere |
| Labelled dose | 2.5 mg weekly start; 5, 10 or 15 mg weekly maintenance | None |
| Half-life | Approximately 5 days (label) | Not published in humans |
| Registry records (ClinicalTrials.gov, 2026-11-11) | 334 mention it; 314 list it as an intervention | 9 mention it; 1 administers it |
| PubMed records (2026-11-11) | 2,779 | 265 |
| Largest dosed human trial | SURMOUNT-1: 2,539 adults, 72 weeks | None published |
| Records naming both | 0 registry, 0 PubMed | — |
What the nine MOTS-c registry records are
A registry search for MOTS-c returns nine records, which can read as nine trials. Opened one by one on 2026-11-11, eight of them do not give MOTS-c to anyone. Five measure the body's own MOTS-c as a blood marker, in studies of diabetes treatment, heart disease, exercise after breast cancer, exercise on dialysis and anaesthesia in kidney transplantation. Three do not contain the term in their record at all (a fasting study, a vestibular implant and a deafness-gene screen) and are returned by the registry's loose text matching.
The one that administers it is NCT07505745, sponsored by Hudson Biotech at a hospital in Shenzhen: 120 adults with prediabetes, MOTS-c or placebo by subcutaneous injection, recruiting, first posted 2026-04-01. Its intervention field reads "Drug: MOTS-c (MDP)" and states no amount. This site's MOTS-c page records that the same sponsor's registrations include one carrying the title and the 2,539 enrolment figure of Lilly's completed SURMOUNT-1 tirzepatide trial. The registry lists what sponsors submit; it does not verify it.
The one study that connects the two classes
No paper tests MOTS-c against or alongside tirzepatide. The nearest thing in the literature runs the other way: it asks what a GLP-1 medicine does to the body's own MOTS-c.
A 2025 study from Athens followed 163 adults with type 2 diabetes for 12 months on insulin, liraglutide, empagliflozin or liraglutide plus empagliflozin, and measured blood MOTS-c among other markers. MOTS-c improved on empagliflozin and on the combination. It did not improve on liraglutide alone (Ikonomidis et al., 2025). Liraglutide is not tirzepatide, the groups were matched rather than randomised, and a blood level is not a dose. The finding is narrow: in the only human data found, a GLP-1 medicine by itself did not move MOTS-c.
The weekly figures by mass
| Compound | Figure | Source | Per week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tirzepatide | 2.5 mg once weekly, first 4 weeks | ZEPBOUND label | 2.5 mg |
| Tirzepatide | 5, 10 or 15 mg once weekly | ZEPBOUND label | 5–15 mg |
| MOTS-c | 2.5–10 mg per injection, two or three times a week | Vendor and forum pages, recorded on this site 2026-09-18 | 5–10 mg |
| MOTS-c | 15 mg/kg a day in mice | Kumagai et al., 2024, as recorded on this site | not transferable |
The circulating MOTS-c range falls inside tirzepatide's labelled range. Nothing follows from that. Tirzepatide's milligrams were set by dose-finding trials; the MOTS-c milligrams have no stated origin, and the compound's potency per milligram in people is unknown.
Both in syringe units
On a U-100 syringe, units = amount ÷ concentration × 100.
| Vial and water | Concentration | 2.5 mg | 5 mg | 10 mg | 15 mg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tirzepatide 10 mg + 1 mL | 10 mg/mL | 25 | 50 | 100 | — |
| Tirzepatide 30 mg + 1.5 mL | 20 mg/mL | 12.5 | 25 | 50 | 75 |
| MOTS-c 10 mg + 2 mL | 5 mg/mL | 50 | 100 | — | — |
| MOTS-c 10 mg + 1 mL | 10 mg/mL | 25 | 50 | 100 | — |
A dash marks more than 100 units, more than a 1 mL syringe holds. The labelled tirzepatide products are not drawn this way: the ZEPBOUND single-dose vials and pens hold each strength in 0.5 mL. Every concentration for tirzepatide is worked on tirzepatide in units, and the MOTS-c calculator takes any vial and water volume.
What is not established
MOTS-c has no human pharmacokinetics, no dose-response in people, no published safety observation in people and no label. No study compares it with tirzepatide or combines the two, and no source supports using one in place of the other. Tirzepatide's trial figures apply to the approved product at its labelled doses, not to research-market powder. Nothing on this page is a dose or a suggestion to use either; Medibact's tirzepatide guide and its MOTS-c guide cover the molecules and their evidence.
Sources and dates
Opened 2026-11-11: the ZEPBOUND label on DailyMed (published 2026-09-02, revised 08/2026), sections 1, 2 and 12; ClinicalTrials.gov v2 API searches for tirzepatide (334; 314 as intervention), MOTS-c (9, each opened) and both together (0), and the full record of NCT07505745; PubMed searches for tirzepatide (2,779), "MOTS-c" (265), both together (0) and MOTS-c with semaglutide, liraglutide or GLP-1 (2); the PubMed abstracts of Jastreboff et al., NEJM 2022 (PMID 35658024), Ikonomidis et al., 2025 (PMID 40008510) and Lee et al., Cell Metabolism 2015 (PMID 25738459). The vendor figures, the mouse figure and the sponsor's other registrations are as recorded on this site's MOTS-c page (2026-09-18). Units are arithmetic by this site. Corrections go to the contact page.